[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 14: Fireside Chat

Nobody in Sam’s group understood the danger they were in, let alone appeared to remember the countdown to the ogre’s rampage. They bantered and talked over the grilled lizard meat as if this was just a camping trip without bothering to keep their voices down.

No one but Sam, Kylie and Kale were keeping watch on their surroundings. Chris and Kai looked around sometimes, but that wasn’t the same thing as being vigilant.

Just a little while ago, monsters attacked them. Monsters. If someone else had taken the brunt of the assault like Sam had, they might have died. None of them seemed to realize that.

No stranger at being the odd one out, Sam brought their attention to it. “Listen, some of you should have leveled up. Did you assign your Bonus Points yet?”

“My… what?” Darren said, sneering. “Bonus Points? They don’t do anything.”

Sam rolled his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether that was pigheaded denial or just straight up stupidity.

“How can you be so sure of that with Kale walking? Don’t you feel different?” Sam demanded.

Darren turned red in the face. Not the first time Sam had pissed him off, and probably wouldn’t be the last. He never did like it when Sam contradicted him in front of other employees. No doubt he still thought of Sam as the quiet stocker, and Kale as the crippled greeter.

“Talking cat says hello,” Komachi said, butting in.

All eyes went to Komachi. Naturally, she loved all the attention. She stood upright on her back paws like a human.

Komachi proceeded to dance in a clumsy rendition of flossing.

If the internet was still a thing, his cat would have gotten all the points. And probably made him filthy rich, too.

But back when he was stuck on Earth, she didn’t talk. Let alone dance like that. She always was a weird cat, but not quite on that level of weird.

The entertainment of a dancing cat certainly smoothed things over. Unexpected humor had a way of disarming people, even somebody like Darren.

“Yes, fine, I leveled up,” Darren said. “I’m just not sure what the stats do.”

“The attendant in the nexus explained some, even helped me pick my elemental magic skill for the Mage Job,” Chris said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “But to be honest, it was a lot to absorb after, well… y’know.”

“Nobody expects to be transported into a place of magic while running for your life from literal monsters,” Kylie whispered.

Sam doubted most heard her. That was just her way. Social confidence was not one of her strengths. But her arrows were one of the first things to hit those forest lizards.

He had taken note that aside from himself and Kale, she was the first to react to danger. She may not be the most talkative, but she was handy in a pinch. And that, more than anything, was important now.

“My butler didn’t tell me jack shit,” Sam said, finding no point in hiding it. While he didn’t get any assistance from that crystal guy, he had an advantage in other ways than the rest of his group had. “So, if you got something to share, please do.”

“We will all benefit,” Kai said solemnly. As one of the Clerics, his stat choices might help guide Komachi. “Sharing food and knowledge around the fire will help us to better understand this new world we’ve found ourselves in.”

Chris broke down some basics. Some obvious things like magical stats contributed largely to spellcasters, and physical mostly for melee.

Not exactly rocket science, considering they were literally branded with “Physical” and “Magical” after all.

However, as you leveled your Job further, stat crossover was to be expected. It was even necessary to use certain abilities, spells, and skills properly.

There were only two stats that the others had learned about to any degree from their own attendants.

Vigor increased your HP, endurance, hardiness and even the potency of heals cast on you.

Likewise, Mind increased your MP, resistance to magical attacks and the restorative potency of mana recovering items, spells and skills.

The other eight stats were as enigmatic to Sam as to the rest of the group, though based on the relationship between Vigor and Mind, perhaps the stats were effectively duplicates of each other.

If they were arranged purposefully, Sam figured it might be safe to extrapolate that Strength and Arcane were similar in function, one for physical and the other for magic.

That seemed to hold true for Dexterity and Control, but where it broke down was Agility and Resonance. But considering Awareness and Insight seemed two sides to the same coin like the other stats, he felt he was onto something.

But he didn’t share his thoughts. Not because he didn’t want to out of selfish reasons, but because he wasn’t remotely sure he was correct.

Instead, he joined the others in complaining about their HP and MP.

Sam wasn’t the only one to voice that his HP didn’t go up as he gained Vigor. Likewise, the mages noted that their MP didn’t change, either.

Nobody knew why that was.

It was especially odd since 10 separate attendants all echoed the same information about Vigor and Mind increasing HP and MP, respectively.

While they ate, Chris also explained some more complex concepts that covered the difference between attunements, affinities and elemental magic. Sam had been right about affinities governing the ability to wield a certain elemental mana with greater potency.

For the first time since arriving on this world, Matt spoke without being prompted, “On the surface, my attendant made it seem like magic skills, affinities, and attunements were all the same thing. But if you ask them the right questions, they give different answers.”

“You don’t need to tell them,” Darren said, glancing at his erstwhile boss. “I bet there are some Mages out there that would pay good money for that information.”

Matt scrubbed a hand through his close-cropped beard and sighed. “I don’t think knowing how to ask the right questions is going to get much more information than an attendant is willing to provide. If anything, we might harm ourselves by not knowing.”

“But the other—”

“Darren. We don’t even know where other people are. If everybody was rushed by a small group of monsters the moment they landed, how many people do you think are still standing?” Matt shook his head. “Furthermore, the night is already cold. Without any shelter but trees nearby, most people would be forced to huddle together for warmth. Easy pickings for any wandering monster.”

That quieted the whole campfire.

Sam had always suspected that Matt hated his job and that he saw more than he let on. There was that time where he knew Matt was aware of Elly skimming the till to pay for her kid’s diabetic supplies.

She was hardly stealthy about it. Desperation drives people to do what they need for the ones they love.

Despite that, the next month when the schedules went out, Elly somehow had picked up multiple extra shifts. And just like that, the skimming stopped.

Not that Matt was a good person in Sam’s book. He was still a manager, and one instance of kindness didn’t outweigh the day-to-day.

Still, Matt redeemed himself a little as he explained into the sudden silence, “I was able to suss out that there is a hierarchy to mana. At the very bottom is a mana attunement. I find it hard to believe myself, but I was able to conjure a ball of water the moment I picked my [Water Magic Skill].”

“Same with my [Ice Magic Skill],” Chris chimed in.

Leilani added, “And my [Wind Magic Skill].”

Matt nodded. “Attunements provide a means of turning this magical energy we have—mana—into various elements. Since I have Water mana, I can do this.”

Holding up his palm, Matt conjured a small blobby ball of water. His expression of concentration told Sam that it was harder than it looked.

With a sigh of relief, the ex-manager let the water splash over his palm and trickle through his fingers to hiss on the coals below.

Wiping his hand on his robe, he continued, “Just because I have the ability to make it, doesn’t mean it’s easy. That’s where the next tier in the hierarchy comes from. My [Water Magic Skill] allows me to use my water mana effectively.”

Always one for demonstrating, Matt turned and aimed his arm in a straight line, making a motion with his other hand and tapping his arm.

A swirling corkscrew of white water rushed out from around his forearm and spiraled out into the darkness.

Sam winced at the noise it made, but was too interested to say anything. The look on Matt’s face was significantly less strenuous than conjuring that small blob of useless water.

“You probably noticed that casting [Water Cannon] was significantly easier for me to do than a harmless ball of water.”

“Yeah,” Chris echoed. “I can cast my [Ice Spike] easily, but actually chilling down the surrounding area is hard.”

“And that’s where we come to the top of the hierarchy,” Matt said, taking a bite out of his skewered lizard tail. “Affinities are, as I gathered from my attendant, rare. Exceedingly so. He suggested that gaining an affinity is how most people gain a Path. Like the rest of you, mine is empty just like my Profession.”

There was a ring of nodding heads around the campfire. Sam brought up his own Status and looked at it thoughtfully.

[Status]

Name: Samuel Hunter

Race: Human

Legend: [Adventurer (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Job: [Fighter (Lv.2 - Unranked)]

Path: [Void (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Profession: [N/A (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Health(HP): [50/50]

Mana(MP): [35/35]

Attunements

[Void Mana] (F-Class Apocalypse Gate) (★★★★Legendary)

Affinities

[Fire Mana] (F-Class) (☆ Primitive I)

He figured it would be best to test out this Void mana later, when there were fewer people around him that he might hurt. If it was what he thought it was, what he feared, then the possibility for destruction was insanely high.

And… truth be told, he felt a little sick knowing that some type of Apocalypse energy that came from that thing that nearly destroyed Islegard’s Shard was inside him.

Maybe I can use it for good, he thought. I’m totally sure no villain has ever thought that, he added sarcastically.

Sam turned his attention back to Matt.

“Having an affinity is control and skill over a given type of mana itself,” Matt said. “If I had Water affinity, I’d be able to equally wield it as magic or freeform like I tried with that ball of water. The attendant wasn’t exactly forthcoming with all of this, but you learn to ask the right questions when you’re—well, you just do.”

“At least you picked the smartest option,” Darren said. “Everybody needs water. You could charge for it pretty easily. It’s not like we know what kind of bacteria is teeming in the water here, if we can even find it.”

“Spoken like a true corpo-clown,” Kai said with a shake of his head. “The land gives us its bounty. Is that not enough for you, haole? You spread like a virus, coming to our home, cha—”

Leilani put a hand on the big man’s arm and shook her head.

Sam, being clearly non-native to Hawai’i had been called a haole all his life, usually out of endearment or light ribbing. But he instantly tensed at the harsh, acidic inflection that Kai had spat into the word.

When you heard it said like that, you watched your manners and got out of there. It was the first—and usually only—sign that somebody was looking to hurt you just for existing.

Matt, however, lifted his hands and patted the air above the fire gently. “There’s no need for that. Besides, as any other Mage could tell you, it doesn’t work like that. If it’s not a spell, the moment it leaves my immediate vicinity, it disappears. I couldn’t even fill a bottle, I bet. It’d just keep disappearing before it hit the bottom.”

“That’d make a neat magic trick, though,” Chris said, trying to lighten the mood.

His sister nudged him in the ribs. “We have actual magic now, Chris!”

“Oh, yeah.” He chuckled. “Still, you could at least clean things, maybe?”

Matt thought about that for a moment, a wry smile on his lips. “From top manager in the region to magical dishwasher? Sounds good to me. Wouldn’t be the first time I worked up from the bottom.”